


A laying on of hands

by phalangine



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: 20th Century, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 02:49:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10427484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phalangine/pseuds/phalangine
Summary: Leonard McCoy is a civilian doctor in California. Captain James Kirk is his most trying patient.





	

**Author's Note:**

> the plot is ~~nonexistent~~ weak because this was largely just me playing around with my love of the idea of bones working during an era without advanced medicine (think early 1900s)

"Mornin’, Bones!"

Leonard stops in his tracks and, eyes lifted toward heaven, silently sends up a prayer that he imagined that.

"If you're praying for me to go away, it isn't working."

Lowering his gaze, Leonard searches the rows of the unwell for the speaker until he catches sight of a familiar blond head. "What are you doing back here?" he grouches as he walks over to the edge of a certain troublemaker's gurney. "I just cured you. Go away."

James Kirk merely shrugs and lifts the arm of the gown to reveal an impressive rash reaching from his wrist to his shoulder.

"What did you do?" Leonard asks, both out of concern and medical curiosity. He reaches for the inflamed limb, which Kirk allows with only a wry grin.

"Had a bit of a run-in with a girl in some bushes. I think I might be allergic to 'em."

At least it's only an arm, Leonard thinks with a sigh. If the rash had manifested elsewhere- say, Kirk's wringable neck- the prognosis would be far more dicey. Done with his inspection, he releases Kirk's arm in favor of reaching for the patient notes. He flips through them quickly, finding the attending physician's work acceptable.

"Well," he says at last, "you won't be dying any time soon. Do be more careful in the future, though, Captain Kirk."

Kirk nods, and Leonard quickly makes his way back to the patient he's actually meant to be treating.

 

**_xx_ **

 

Kirk, to no one's surprise, is not more careful.

"You look terrible," Leonard says when he opens the door and catches sight of his most prolific patient.

It isn't an exaggeration. Kirk's face is a series of cuts and bruises, various areas swollen so fat that the man's normally charming visage is twisted into a grotesque shadow of its usual beauty. One of his arms is cradled close to his chest, and the skin on the back of his hands is split.

Kirk's bunk mate, Spock, steps back to let Leonard in. Behind him, Kirk's shoulders are up by his ears.

"What was it this time?" Leonard asks minutes

later when he has Kirk settled on his bed. He has Kirk's head caught in one hand while the other alternately cleans and applies a salve to the many scrapes. "Get chatty with the wrong man's girl? Do you even remember?"

Rather than launch into one of his usual tales of debauchery, Kirk looks toward the floor. "It was nothing," he mumbles.

Above them, Spock lets out a pointed sigh.

Leonard fights the urge to shake the kid. He's been in California long enough to have heard tell of George Kirk's legacy. It isn't a stretch to imagine the son would rebel at forever being in his father's shadow. What James needs is a steady hand, not an angry one.

"Well, this 'nothing' sure made you look pretty," Leonard drawls, letting his accent thicken. That always seems to get Kirk's attention for some reason. "I know some girls like a man with a little danger about him, but I don't think this is what they’re thinking of."

Kirk snorts, a sound that quickly chokes off into silence as Leonard finishes with his face and moves onto the man’s abraded hands. He takes the left first, given that that one isn't attached to an absurdly swollen arm.

"Gave as good as you got, I take it," he observes, noting the deep welts and number of broken fingers.

Kirk shifts on the bed. "Course I did."

"Stop preening. I'm not praising you."

That doesn't stop Kirk; if anything, he puffs up further.

He deflates plenty quickly when Leonard reaches for his arm and starts palpating it, feeling for displaced bone.

"Hey, take it easy, Bones," the kid whines.

Leonard ignores him. Beyond the swelling, he can’t feel anything wrong with the arm. All the signs point to a simple fracture. He won't know for certain without an X-ray, which Kirk won't consent to, so he's forced to make do.

"Come by the house tomorrow," he orders.

"I'll put a cast on you. Until then, be careful, keep the arm up, and ice it if you can"

"Sure thing," Kirk says brightly. “See you then, Doctor.”

Leonard tells himself he doesn't know it's a lie.

 

**_xx_ **

 

Kirk is high on morphine.

"Bo-oooones," he singsongs. He's lying flat on his front, his head turned so he can eye Leonard. Stupid kid got fried to hell and back running into a burning building to get out a trapped firefighter. His back, legs, and palms got the worst of it, and there's going to be a scar where something hot scorched his cheek. With Kirk's luck, it will only enhance his charm.

For now, though, he's just a mess.

"Bones!"

"Yes, Captain?"

"How come you never call me James?"

"I'm your doctor, not your friend," Leonard says easily.

"What if I want you to be my friend?"

"Too bad." Kirk's face falls, and against his better judgment, Leonard relents. "As your doctor, I need to be able to think of you as any other patient. I can't favor you or risk losing perspective. It's a kindness, Captain."

Kirk thinks about that for a good long while, so long that Leonard starts to wonder if maybe the topic is dead. Then Kirk hums and announces, "I don't have many friends."

"Try talking instead of picking fights," Leonard suggests, voice even despite the way his heart is in his beating in his throat.

Kirk nods. "I'm leaving soon."

"The Air Force sending you away finally?"

"You'll wait for me?"

Leonard feels his brows creep up his forehead. "I live here, Captain. Where do you think I'm going to go?"

"So you'll wait?"

The morphine must be working its magic, so Leonard smiles and promises to wait. The promise seems to soothe Kirk, and soon, he falls asleep. Leonard stays where he is on the edge of the bed for a moment just watching Kirk. Then a nurse calls for him, and he hurries off to take care of the next patient.

 

**_xx_ **

 

 

Kirk doesn't come back for years. By the time he does return, the Great War is over.

Leonard didn't find out until a slim woman walked into his house and informed him that there was a man in need of help.

"Nyota Uhura," she introduced herself.

"You're Jim's McCoy, aren't you?"

That was an odd way of putting it, but Leonard nodded. He couldn't quite shake the odd feeling in his stomach at the way she called Kirk "Jim". There was a sense of familiarity in her tone, as though she and Kirk had every reason in the world to be on a first name basis.

"He needs you," she continued. "Last I saw, he was at the barracks, but I can't promise he'll stay there."

"Can you be more specific?"

"Just go to him, Doctor."

So Leonard goes. He's used to going to the barracks and finding his way around- military boys on the whole have a tendency to find trouble, not just Kirk, and Leonard lives the closest to the Air Force's post, so he's usually the one they seek out. There's also the matter of him being a head surgeon at the hospital. He's consulted on countless Air Force cases, so the boys know his name. And his work. Someone put it around that Leonard has superhuman

skills with a scalpel, that there's nothing he can't excise. It's wrong, of course. Leonard is good at what he does, but he is just a man, and one day they'll figure that out. Until then, he has free rein to move among the men without question.

He knows where Kirk's room is, but when he spots a familiar curly head, he grabs the officer to double check.

"Chekov, isn't it?" he asks. "Broke your collarbone last year."

The boy- and he is a boy, younger still than Kirk, with round eyes and some baby fat left in his cheeks- looks startled at first. "Oh, Dr. Bones!" he says after a moment. He still has that Russian accent, Leonard notes, despite the years he's spent in the company of Americans. "I'm sorry. I was thinking, and I did not recognize you at first. Is everything all right?"

"Sure it is," Leonard assures him. Kirk may make him a liar in a bit, but there's no cause in worrying Chekov unnecessarily. "I just want to check on Kirk. Is he still in his bunk?"

"Yes, Doctor." Chekov hesitates. "He may not be in a good mood, however. Perhaps you can come back?"

Leonard shakes his head. "Thanks, Chekov, and don't worry. I can handle a bad mood."

The boy doesn't look reassured, but Leonard is already moving on. Most people ignore Kirk's tendency to get smacked around. For two people to have admitted outright that something is wrong with the captain...

Whatever is happening, it isn't good.

He gets to Kirk's room and finds the door ajar, so he slips through without knocking. It's bad manners, yes, but doctors don't get to be mannerly when there's trouble.

Inside the room, he quickly makes out the familiar shape of Kirk, sitting on his bottom bunk with his back to the wall. He doesn't react to Leonard's presence, just keeps looking at the opposite wall as if holds the secrets of the universe. His bunk mates are conspicuously absent.

"Captain?" Leonard calls.

Kirk startles, his head whipping around to face Leonard. He just stares for a moment, his features twisted in confusion, before he shakes his head. "Who tattled?"

"A woman."

"Miss Uhura, then, I'm sure." Kirk reaches up and scratches at his jaw. "I'm sorry she disturbed you for nothing, McCoy, but as you can see, I'm fine."

That, Leonard thinks, is probably the biggest lie he's heard in a long time.

"You mind if I sit, then? It's not a short trip from the house, and I'm not a young man anymore."

Kirk shrugs and pulls up his knees, making space for Leonard at the foot of the bed. Leonard sits slowly, careful not to jostle Kirk on the thin mattress. They don't speak for a long time. The only sounds are Kirk's light breaths and the muffled bustling outside.

"My father was a doctor," Leonard offers slowly. Kirk looks up from his study of his knees, curiosity lifting his brows, but he says nothing. Leonard casts his eyes up to the ceiling, recalling his father's worn face. "He was a good man and an accomplished physician. He used to take with him when he made house calls, taught me the fundamentals of doctoring you don't learn in school. We never talked about it, but we both knew I would follow in his footsteps."

Here, Leonard hesitates. News has been infrequent and unreliable, and he can't be certain that what he thinks happened is what actually happened. And if he's wrong, he may do more harm than good.

Still, he can't expect Kirk to diagnose himself, and sometimes you have to risk being wrong to find out what's right.

"One of the first things he taught me was that physicians aren't all-powerful," Leonard tells the ceiling. "We are not gods. We will fail. We will be put in impossible situations without answers and be expected to answer them. I thought I understood that."

The mattress squeaks as Kirk shifts. "What happened?"

"He got sick." Leonard studies the ceiling, taking in the uneven texture and bland color. "It's convention that we don't treat our families, but he wouldn't have anyone else. I didn't realize why until I realized he had consumption. He didn't want to waste away like so many of his patients."

"Bones..."

"I gave him enough morphine to down an elephant." Leonard shakes his head. "If I'd waited, I might have been able to save him. We have better access to antibiotics now. There might have been time."

Something- Kirk's leg?- presses against Leonard's back, and Leonard sags back against it. "I swore an oath to protect life. Not to end it."

Kirk doesn't try to reassure him. He simply sits against the wall and works through what Leonard just told him.

Eventually, he swings his legs over the side and sidles up to Leonard. "I failed them," he says quietly. "So many of my 'men' were just kids, and I left their bodies in Europe. I don't know how I'm supposed to face their mothers."

Leonard knows a thing or two about facing families. Not on Kirk's scale, no, but the basis remains the same. "Be honest," he says. "And remember- their grief will swallow yours whole. Take what they throw at you, and walk away. Then come by mine and have a drink."

Kirk huffs. "I thought you didn't approve of me drinking?"

"I don't approve of you drinking so much you get yourself hurt," Leonard corrects.

"I see."

Kirk lays his head on Leonard's shoulder. He suddenly seems younger than he is, too small and vulnerable to be the hero who saved more lives than he lost. It feels natural to put an arm around him and pull him close, to hold him until he falls asleep.

"You'll be all right, kid," Leonard tells Kirk quietly as he eases him onto his side. There are deep wrinkles in Kirk's forehead, his youth masked by the weight of his duty.

Leonard shakes his head as he straightens up. Maybe in the future, they will have a cure for death, but here, all they have is time.

 

**_xx_ **

 

Leonard has always been grateful for the nurses he works with. They have knowledge of things that to him may as well be witchcraft: assuaging the fears of the dying, making those in agony more comfortable, keeping the troublemakers from bothering the weaker patients. Nurse Chapel is an exemplary head nurse. On top of her nursing duties, she helps him run his rounds with militant efficiency.

Or she did.

"That man is a menace," she hisses at him one morning. "He’s been fighting with another patient, he distracts the nurses, he keeps trying to leave... You have to deal with him, Doctor."

Leonard doesn't need to ask who she's talking about. There's only one patient who could have annoyed Chapel this much and gotten away with it.

"I'll take care of it," Leonard assures her.

An hour later, he opens the curtain around Kirk's bed and folds his arms across his chest.

Kirk looks up at him with a smile. "Hello, Bones."

"Stop harassing my nurses," Leonard growls, jabbing a finger at the captain. "I'm busy. I don't have time for this."

"He started it," Kirk points out.

One of the junior nurses did confirm that Nero was the original antagonist, but Leonard isn't about to give Kirk any moral high ground. "I don't care. You know there are people here who need to rest, not listen to the two of you shouting and throwing things at each other. Understand?"

Kirk stares at him for a long moment before he lets out a sigh. "Yeah, Bones. I understand."

"Good man. Now, you told Nurse Chapel you had pain in your pelvis. I want to make sure this isn't an infection, so lift your gown for me."

Kirk groans but does as he's bid.

 

**_xx_ **

 

Leonard is just getting into bed after a performing an especially long and grueling emergency surgery when he hears a knock on the door. He doesn't bother covering up, just swings himself to his feet and hurries to the door.

He throws it open, but instead of Nurse Chapel or someone bleeding to death, on the other side is a shifty-looking James Kirk.

"Do you know what time it is?" Leonard asks.

Kirk flashes a weak smile at him. "I came to take you up on your offer."

Rubbing at his temples- he could really use a drink after that operation- Leonard reluctantly steps aside and waves Kirk inside. “No judging,” he warns, to which Kirk lifts his hands, palms forward.

The apartment is small, just the one room, so Leonard gestures for Kirk to make himself at home on the bed. Typical Kirk, the man drops down heavily and bounces a bit, testing out Leonard’s thin mattress, before scooting back and folding his legs under himself.

“Boots off,” Leonard orders. He doesn’t watch to see if Kirk obeys; he’s already turning and reaching for the little cabinet where he keeps his liquor and glasses. There’s only one glass, though. He’s wondering what to do with that when he hears the thump of Kirk’s boots on the floor.

Shaking his head- Kirk is about as unlikely to care about sharing a bottle as it gets- Leonard turns back around and joins Kirk on the bed.

“I’ve only got one glass, so unless you want to decant, we’re sharing.”

Kirk shrugs that off, his gaze drawn to the label on the bottle. “What happened to the good stuff I was promised?”

“I drank it,” Leonard tells him right before he brings the bottle to his lips and takes a deep draw.

That gets Kirk’s attention. “You’re sure handy with that.”

“Comes with experience.”

“Didn’t take you for a drinker.”

“Didn’t take you for a talker.”

Kirk snorts. “Yes, you did.”

He isn’t wrong. Leonard figured out that James Kirk was the type who could talk for an hour without saying anything. It’s the worst kind of person in Leonard’s experience, worse even than the ones who drone on and on about every minor ailment. He can give the worriers reassurance, or write a prescription for a tincture that will soothe them. But he can do nothing for the ones who don’t talk. It’s as frustrating as having to sit with a patient whose ailment is clear but has no cure. He can only sit by and wish the world were kinder.

Kirk holds out a hand, and Leonard hands him the bottle.

“I heard you had to operate earlier,” Kirk says after he lowers it. “Man died, didn’t he?”

“Most men do.” Leonard sighs and scratches at his head. "We’re delicate creatures, Captain- intricate systems made of millions of parts where a single error could destroy the entire being.” He pauses, considering. “Have you studied much biology?”

“None,” Kirk admits, handing the bottle over.

Leonard accepts it gratefully. “Then you’re lucky. Medicine is an ugly profession. We fail more than we heal. In the end, all we can do is sit at bedsides and explain the way our patients will make their way to their deaths. Pneumonia, consumption, syphilis… we are infinitely more intelligent, yet they best us at every turn.”

“You sound like you hate it.” Kirk doesn’t sound surprised or upset, merely curious. “Do you ever think of doing something else?”

"No.” Leonard shakes his head. “Never that. Doctoring is all I know, and I wouldn’t choose another life even if it weren’t. But it ain’t easy being useless, Captain.”

Kirk nods, and they lapse into silence, passing the bottle back and forth without speaking. The liquor may be cheap, but it’s strong enough that soon, the two of them are leaning heavily into each other, laughing over nothing and singing cheerfully. Leonard will have to apologize to his neighbors tomorrow. It’s fine, though, because Kirk is flushed pink and smiling his easy smile.

"Hey, Bones," he says, lifting his head to whisper in Leonard's ear. "You know what I like about you?"

Leonard shrugs. "What's that?"

"You're a good man. I thought you were a mean son of a bitch at first, but you're actually a real soft-hearted fellow, aren't you?"

"Horse shit."

"Nah, I've got your number, Doc."

"Yeah? And what are you planning on doing with it?"

Jim's smile gets a little lopsided, which is confusing, but Leonard doesn't have long to wonder about the change. One moment, Kirk is smiling at him. The next, there's a set of dry lips pressed to Leonard's.

It's been a good while since Leonard's been kissed. Jocelyn left him more than eight years ago, and he's been too busy working even to think of finding someone else. Hasn't much wanted to go through the trouble of courting someone, especially when there's as good a chance they'll just break his heart again as they will care for it.

But there's something about James Kirk that makes Leonard wonder if maybe the odds aren't a little stacked in the man's favor. Maybe all the good luck Leonard is missing went to this man instead. If that's the case, then Leonard can't say he minds overmuch. Luck brought Kirk back as whole as any. It's worth having nothing but his bones if that's the upshot.

Kirk lifts a hand to Leonard's face, his rough hand catching on Leonard's stubble as it moves over his jaw, and Leonard feels his eyes flutter closed of their own accord. It's been a while, yes, but his body remembers the mechanics just fine. He lifts his own hands to Kirk's face, threads his fingers through the short strands. Kirk makes a low noise and scoots closer. His free hand comes to rest on Leonard's shoulder, fingers tightening as Leonard leans in hard, pressing Kirk onto his back.

Leonard follows him, and the two wind up tangling with each other in the messy sheets. Kirk winds up on top, ranging over Leonard with wide eyes gone dark.

"You sure about this, Leonard?" he rumbles.

Leonard slides his hands down Kirk's sides, enjoying the way Kirk moves into the touch, until his palms are fitted to the jut of Kirk's hips. Alcohol is buzzing through his veins, but he's only feeling warm and a little clumsy. His mind is his own, same as Kirk.

"I'm sure," Leonard tells him, and Kirk's expression turns sly.

 

**_xx_ **

 

"I'm leaving the Air Force," Kirk says the next morning.

Leonard nods, not surprised. Nothing about Kirk made him think the man was cut out for the military. He prickles at authority too much, too sensitive by half, too given to going off on his own. The fact that he lasted as long as he did is testament to his strength of will more than any inborn adeptness for the life.

"What will you do?"

Kirk runs his tongue over his lips, and Leonard briefly forgets what they're talking about, his mind filled instead with flashes of last night.

"I'd like to run for mayor, I think," he says, ducking his head.

Leonard snorts. Of course Kirk wants a position of command. "You'd make a good mayor- provided you stop brawling with your future constituents."

Kirk makes a face. "I haven't gotten in a fight in years."

"Years you spent overseas, fighting Europeans," Leonard points out.

"I'd like us to stay friends," Kirk blurts. "That is- Last night was-"

Leonard takes pity on him and reaches forward to lay his hand on Kirk's. "I told you before, Jim. I'm not going anywhere."

Kirk brightens. "You called me Jim."

"Don't get used to it."

He already is, though. Kirk is smiling brightly, his foot pressed against Leonard's calf, and he's got a wild look in his eye. "You should call me that later, too."

"Later?" Leonard asks. "Who says there's going to be a later?" Kirk freezes, and Leonard lets himself smile. "Go on, you. I've got to get to work. The hospital won't run itself."

Kirk hums to himself and jams the last bite of toast into his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> a massive credit is due to _the youngest medicine: notes from a medicine watcher_ by lewis thomas, which heavily inspired this


End file.
